Apocalypse

by Dean Crawford

  ‘I guess I just haven’t been able to tell you how I feel because—’

  The door to the office cracked open and Doug Jarvis strode in. Lopez flinched in her chair and then glared at the old man.

  ‘Damn it, Doug, don’t people knock where you come from?’

  Jarvis looked down at her in surprise.

  ‘Sorry Nicola, but this is an emergency.’ He turned to Ethan. ‘Ethan, you need to come with me right now, there isn’t much time.’

  Ethan rolled his eyes up into his head. ‘Not again?’

  Jarvis placed a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘No, it’s nothing like that. There’s something that I need you to see.’

  ‘Our office got swept,’ Lopez growled at him. ‘Your boys been playing out of hours?’

  Jarvis looked at her quizzically. ‘No, not at all. I’ll look into it, I promise, but right now we’ve got to leave.’

  Ethan sighed, and looked at Lopez.

  ‘Okay, let’s go and see what this is all about, and maybe we can talk later about—’

  ‘Just you, Ethan,’ Jarvis cautioned them, as Lopez stood up. ‘I’m sorry, Nicola, but this can’t wait and I can only show one of you.’

  Ethan looked at Jarvis. ‘Where I go, Lopez goes.’

  ‘Not this time,’ Jarvis replied. ‘I’ll have you arrested if I have to, Ethan, but you’re coming with me and you’re coming alone. It won’t take long.’

  Lopez stared at Jarvis with something approaching contempt, but she waved them away.

  ‘Just go,’ she said.

  Ethan looked at her for a long moment, and then turned to Jarvis.

  ‘Sorry, Doug, but it’ll have to wait. Nicola and I were talking about something important, and I want her to hear what I have to say.’

  Lopez looked up at Ethan and for the first time in days a true smile melted her features. Jarvis looked at them each in turn, unable to decide how to respond. Lopez answered for him.

  ‘It’s all right, Ethan,’ she said, still smiling. ‘You can tell me when you get back, okay?’

  Ethan looked at her.

  ‘You sure?’

  Lopez nodded, and seeing her still smiling provoked a gentle warmth that spread through him.

  ‘Okay,’ he said to Jarvis, grabbing his jacket. ‘What’s so important?’

  72

  DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY ANALYSIS CENTER, BOLLING AIR FORCE BASE, WASHINGTON D.C.

  Ethan had rarely received clearance to enter restricted facilities during his military service, his rank only allowing him occasional access to a narrow spectrum of classified material. Now, striding into the DIAC building alongside Doug Jarvis, after so recently being allowed into Project Watchman, he realized that he was on entirely new turf.

  The large, angular building nestled close to the east bank of the Potomac, was closed to the public and contained the vast majority of the DIA’s staff. Ethan followed Jarvis through the building, mindful of the offices to either side of him with their doors kept scrupulously closed, unattended monitor screens blank and password-protected, and passing operatives smiling politely but not stopping or chatting. Everybody was all business, and the business was serious.

  Jarvis led him to an elevator that lifted them to the third floor. Ethan guessed that the director of the agency, Abraham Mitchell, probably resided somewhere above him, enveloped within a force field of absolute security. Right now, the level of protection afforded even this floor of the building was intimidating: identity tags worn at all times; mutual cross-referencing of people moving between floors and even rooms; fingerprint and retinal scanners as standard; metal detectors attuned to weapons-grade materials. Cameras, sensors, fireproof and sealable doors. Since 2001, nobody anywhere in the DIA skimped on security. Nobody.

  ‘Through here.’

  Jarvis directed him to a door that was guarded by two soldiers, one of whom checked their tags against a roster before opening the door for them. Ethan stepped through and was surprised to see a small, simple office with a computer desk and a chair. Standing in the room was a tall, gaunt-looking man whom Ethan recognized from years before – a CIA man who had ordered him to sign a nondisclosure agreement in a hidden anechoic chamber beneath a warehouse in downtown Washington DC.

  ‘Mr. Warner,’ the tall man greeted him.

  ‘Mr. Wilson,’ Ethan replied. ‘Didn’t think we’d be meeting again.’

  ‘Nor did I,’ Jarvis said. ‘You have a habit of appearing in all the wrong places, Mr. Wilson.’

  ‘As do you,’ Wilson said evenly. ‘The material you have obtained is classified well above Top Secret, and yet you intend to share it with a civilian contractor. How do you think the Pentagon would feel about such a breach of security, Mr. Jarvis?’

  Jarvis held his ground.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, because it’s already been cleared by the director of this agency, in whose building you’re standing. You got a problem, stop creeping around here and go take it to your boss at the Pentagon. Let them have the pissing contest.’

  Wilson regarded them both for a moment, and then made for the door of the office. He stopped there, and looked back at them.

  ‘We’re watching both of you.’

  ‘I’d never have known,’ Jarvis replied.

  Wilson turned and strode out of the office. Jarvis closed the door in his sepulchral wake and locked it from the inside.

  ‘Nice guy, I’ll guess that he’s the one who had our office searched,’ Ethan said.

  ‘It’s possible,’ Jarvis replied, ‘but right now I can’t think of a good reason why the CIA would be interested in the two of you.’

  Ethan looked at the spartan surroundings and the lone computer on the desk. ‘You got me all the way out here for this? And there was me getting all excited.’

  ‘This room is sufficiently sealed so that nobody can hear us outside the door,’ Jarvis said. ‘There are also no cameras or sensors in here.’

  ‘What did you want to show me?’ Ethan asked, somewhat confused. ‘And why did I have to come all the way out to the district to see it?’

  Jarvis perched himself on the edge of the desk and gestured to the computer.

  ‘Ethan, I got Project Watchman to locate the footage of Joanna Defoe from Jabaliya, West Bank. It’s on that computer.’

  Ethan suddenly went cold. Memories of Joanna flitted through his mind, dragging with them years of grief and suffering that he’d tried so hard to forget. Again, the realization hit him that he’d begun to associate Joanna’s memory with that grief and regret, and not the good years that they’d shared beforehand.

  ‘Do you want to see it?’ Jarvis asked, his expression pinched with concern.

  Ethan sought an answer inside himself, and shook his head. ‘I just don’t know.’

  ‘Closure, Ethan, is sometimes better than not knowing, even if it brings up things that we’d rather forget.’ Jarvis gestured at the monitor screen. ‘This footage will be destroyed as per protocol once viewed. There won’t be another chance for me to pull strings like this on your behalf.’

  Ethan sighed. As ever, intelligence security trumped personal emotion. He took a breath.

  ‘Okay, Doug, play it.’

  Jarvis reached out and tapped a button on the keyboard. A window popped up on the screen, with a message that read ‘Video 1 of 2’. Jarvis tapped the play button, and in an instant Ethan was transported back years into his past.

  A high-angle shot of Gaza City and the dangerous alleys of Jabaliya, a refugee camp crouched in the city’s northern reaches. Bright daylight, angular buildings blasted dry by a thousand suns, abandoned vehicles and mangled masonry shattered by the incendiaries of Israel’s fighter planes.

  The camera zoomed in to an altitude of perhaps thirty feet as, from a doorway, a tight huddle of figures burst out into the street. Masked faces aimed Kalashnikov rifles in all directions, covering their points as they advanced toward a waiting dark-blue sedan stained with dust. In their midst a woma
n. Blonde hair. Tall. Shoved and jostled by her captors.

  Ethan sucked in a breath and leaned close to the monitor, one hand reaching out as if of its own accord, to touch the screen where Joanna stood. The gunmen pushed her toward the car, hard enough to make her stumble as she squinted. Ethan’s brain went into overtime.

  ‘She’s been held in darkness,’ he said quickly, his mind working faster than his mouth could produce words. ‘Her shirt’s fairly new. Hair’s longer than when I last saw her. She’s not bound or gagged. Looks fairly healthy, a bit pale, maybe.’

  ‘Camera resolution can play with colors,’ Jarvis corrected him, then conceded Ethan’s point. ‘But she’s definitely squinting, so she’s been held inside.’

  The gunmen huddled in a tight circle around Joanna. One of their number broke ranks and sprinted across the street. Reached the door of the sedan and opened it. Immediately, the vehicle exploded in a violent fireball that scattered the gunmen like skittles. Ethan glimpsed the tight huddle of men around Joanna tumble as though hit by a hurricane, as a scythe of supersonic shrapnel sliced through their ranks.

  Ethan leapt up out of his seat as his guts plunged inside him, one hand flying loosely to his lips as his other clenched into a fist. Thick clouds of smoke and dust swirled, obscuring his view. He stared at the screen as, through the veils of smoke, the scattered bodies of the fallen gunmen began hauling themselves to their feet, and then a burst of gunfire shattered masonry around them and kicked up tiny clouds of dust as bullets hailed down the street.

  ‘Jo.’

  Her name fell from his lips as though she had never left his life. Bullets slammed into the already-stunned gunmen and hurled them into walls or onto their backs on Gaza’s ancient soil. Ethan saw a pair of Israeli halftracks advancing toward the gunmen, a large-caliber section weapon atop each hosing bullets down the street and scouring it of life.

  ‘Shit, Doug!’

  Jarvis did not move, and Ethan stared in stunned silence as the halftracks stopped firing. The street was littered with the dead or writhing bodies of masked gunmen, and framed by a thick coiling pillar of smoke from the wrecked sedan. Israeli troops spilled from behind the halftracks and advanced down the street with their rifles aimed ahead of them, kicking dead bodies and firing rounds into those that still showed signs of life.

  The thick smoke from the burning car drifted clear of the street for a brief instant, and Ethan saw the tight knot of dead gunmen lying sprawled at awkward angles in the bright sunshine.

  And Joanna was nowhere to be seen.

  Ethan stared at the screen, unable to tear his gaze from it. ‘Where did she go?’

  ‘I don’t know, Ethan. But she clearly did not die in this raid by Israeli forces. They were looking for her, Ethan. After what happened when you worked for me there, the Israeli Defense Force has kept an ear to the ground for information leading to the whereabouts of Joanna Defoe. They even offered a reward. An informant tipped them off.’

  Ethan stared at the screen for a moment longer, and then he slowly turned and looked at Jarvis, his throat dry as he spoke.

  ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘Six months ago, Ethan.’

  Ethan flopped back in his seat as sharp points of pain pierced the corners of his eyes. He dragged a hand down his face.

  ‘Watchman could track her movements,’ he said, ‘find out where she went.’

  ‘My leverage didn’t extend that far,’ Jarvis said apologetically. ‘This was all the time I could scrounge. Most of it was spent finding her and then grabbing this footage.’

  Ethan shot out of his seat again. ‘Then get more time!’

  ‘I had to pull in another favor for you.’ Jarvis raised his hands defensively. ‘I couldn’t get any more than I did. If I could, you know that I would have.’

  Ethan leaned on the desk and took a deep breath.

  ‘What other favor?’ he asked finally.

  ‘Ethan, we downloaded the contents of the camera that you retrieved from Joaquin Abell before he died. We’ve seen all of it.’

  Ethan lifted his head. ‘You’ve seen six months into the future?’

  Jarvis offered him a brief smile.

  ‘Everything as seen through the lens of that camera,’ he confirmed. ‘I have to say that, for the most part, it was remarkably boring. The camera’s travels did not exactly bring it into contact with much except our own agency’s various buildings and offices. I suppose we should have known better: once we acquired it, the camera was in our own hands and thus would only see what we see.’

  ‘You’re saying that, after all that, after Scott Bryson and Dennis Aubrey gave their lives, all we got was six months of your office furniture and people using the coffee machine?’

  ‘Well, it’s not quite that bad,’ Jarvis said. ‘One of our analysts managed to obtain glimpses of future news reports, events occurring in the operations rooms of the building, that kind of thing. Of course, once we saw that footage, we knew that one way or another the camera would end up in those rooms. The point is, it caught enough information to have been more than worthwhile: most of it is sensitive enough to have been classified.’

  Ethan chewed his lip for a moment.

  ‘You likely to be able to stop any wars or anything because of it?’

  ‘No,’ Jarvis admitted, ‘but the lives of a good number of soldiers and operatives working overseas will be saved and otherwise dangerous situations avoided. You and Lopez did good yet again, Ethan, and the director was delighted with what you’ve achieved. The unit here will continue to receive funding and you’re getting more interest from the Pentagon.’

  Ethan managed a faint smile of relief.

  ‘At least we won’t have to spend all of our time chasing bail runners around Illinois,’ he said finally.

  Jarvis nodded, glancing at the computer. Ethan peered at him.

  ‘Is there something else on this computer you wanted to show me?’

  Jarvis nodded slowly.

  ‘Yes, there is. When we finished reviewing the footage, and despite the fact that the contents were marked as classified, the director agreed with me that, considering the lengths you and Lopez went to in obtaining the footage for us, you deserved to see the final part of it. Ethan, sit down again, please.’

  A tremor of apprehension twisted through Ethan’s guts.

  ‘What’s going on here, Doug?’ he asked, reluctantly sitting down.

  ‘There’s no way to describe it,’ Jarvis replied. ‘You’ve just got to see it for yourself. You understand that what you are about to see will not happen for six months, and that it cannot be discussed beyond this room. It must remain absolutely classified, and between you and me. Not Lopez, not anyone.’

  Ethan nodded, but Jarvis put his hand on Ethan’s shoulder.

  ‘Let me hear you say it, Ethan.’

  ‘I understand.’

  Jarvis nodded, and Ethan looked at the blank monitor before him. Jarvis reached down to the keyboard and pressed one of the buttons. Immediately, an image appeared on the screen before him. It was dark and indistinct, and he wasn’t sure what he was looking at until his brain processed the scene and it leapt into life before him.

  There was no sound, and the image occasionally flickered with static as coils of energy flared around the edges of the screen.

  Ethan saw a forest, deep and black, impenetrable trees lining a trail that wound its way through the woods into the inky distance. The sky above was velvet black, and jagged mountain peaks towered across the horizon in the distance, their snowy peaks glowing blue beneath a brilliant white moon high above.

  Ethan’s eyes flicked down to the trail below as he caught sight of movement, a shadow against the shadows. A body was slumped on the trail, and as it moved he saw a thick mass of long black hair draped across damp grass. The body wearily lifted its head, and Ethan felt a bolt of electricity spasm through his chest as he recognized the face.

  ‘Lopez.’

  Ethan stared at the
screen, transfixed, as Lopez looked over her shoulder and away from the camera. He saw her begin to frantically drag herself toward the camera, as though trying to escape from something.

  And then he saw it.

  From the dense forest blackness a huge man lumbered into view. Heavy arms dangled from broad, thick shoulders, huge legs strode cumbersomely beneath a thick fur coat. The man was wearing an oddly shaped cap that was almost conical, but it was his size that stunned Ethan. The guy must have been two meters tall, and—

  Ethan’s heart stopped in his chest as he realized that the man was not wearing a coat, and was not wearing a hat. For a moment he thought that perhaps a bear had reared onto its hind legs and was tracking Lopez, but then he saw the face briefly illuminated by the moon’s pale light, and the unmistakably humanoid features, a low and heavy brow with eyes sunken into deep sockets.

  Thick fur hung in knotted tags as the broad, flat face looked down at Lopez as she hauled herself toward the camera. A thick, meaty hand as big as Lopez’s entire head reached down and stopped her before the creature looked up, as though noticing the camera. Ethan felt fear shudder through his guts as he looked into a pair of eyes that belonged to something that was both human and animal, an unspeakable chimera of man and beast.

  Ethan watched as the red eyes flared angrily at the camera, and then a huge arm flashed across the screen and swatted the camera into the air, and the image crashed into static and vanished.

  Ethan sat in stunned silence and stared at the screen. Joanna was alive, Lopez was facing death and he didn’t have the first clue about which problem he should deal with first. He looked up at Jarvis in despair.

  ‘You know the future, Ethan,’ Jarvis said, ‘but you’re going to have to deal with that yourself.’

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I often get asked by readers just how much of the science incorporated within my novels is ‘real’. The simple answer is that all of the science within my novels is real, but some of it is stretched to embrace the extreme events that are part and parcel of thriller fiction.